NCECA EXHIBITION 2025
In conjunction with the NCECA conference in Salt Lake City, Modern West presents PUSH, a collaborative exhibition featuring 12 current and alumni artists, including our Executive Director, from The Bray’s residency program. This exhibition showcases a diverse collection of innovative ceramics at Modern West’s main gallery.
Please Note: This catalog features a curated selection of some of the artist’s work and does not represent their complete collection at the exhibition.
For sales inquiries please contact 406.443.3502 ext. 117 exhibitions@archiebray.org
Sarah Alsaied; Kuwait
Austin Coudriet; Lincoln, NE
Laura Dirksen; Maria Stein, OH
Dante Gambardella; Bozeman, MT
Lexus Giles; Jackson, MS
Rebecca Harvey; Helena, MT
Simphiwe Mbunyuza; Johannesburg, South Africa
Janina Myronowa; Poland; Ukraine
Carey Nathanson; Wilmington, NC
Jason Lee Starin; Grand Rapids, MI
Kim
Sarah Alsaied Kuwait, based in Midwest, US
As a bicultural artist, Sarah Alsaied makes work that straddles Eastern and Western cultures, and the complex issues of identity and the collapse of social, cultural, racial, and gendered borders. Through the use of clay, fiber, and installation art, she expresses aspects of herself and challenges stereotypes of Arab women. Through the combination of malleable and permanent qualities of the materials, Sarah explores and expresses the complexities of identity.
Sarah Alsaied is an artist from Kuwait based in the Midwest, United States. Sarah earned a BA in Studio Arts with ceramics emphasis at University of Southern Indiana (2018) and an MFA with sculpture emphasis at Wichita State University (2022). In 2021, Sarah contributed in organizing, co-creating, and co-designing of Juneteenth Parade Float in Wichita, KS, and reimagined the homecoming parade mascot puppet for Wichita State University. Recently, she finished a residency at the New Harmony Clay Project Center. Outside of the studio, Sarah is a wanderer who enjoys cooking, sporty activities, jewelry making, and video games.
Theatre of The Absurd, 2025 ceramic, underglaze, luster, fibers, found objects
19” x 41” x 17”
$3,000
Take Care, 2025 ceramic, underglaze, paint, resin, glass, fibers
$1,800
Austin Coudriet Lincoln, Nebraska
Austin Coudriet’s studio practice is an ongoing tactile conversation between soft amorphous forms and rigid linear components. Daily visual experiences of infrastructure found within the natural environment are re-contextualized through the lens of play into nonrepresentational, interactive sculpture. Amid a collision of rudimentary shapes, inspired by Deconstructivist architecture, compositions are rendered. Lines find edges, and shapes find volume.
Austin is currently a long term artist in residence at the Archie Bray Foundation located in Helena, Montana. Here he is able to pursue his passions of teaching, and working as a studio artist. He divides his studio practice between creating large scale sculptures intended for public art installations, and design oriented objects. In 2019 Austin received a BFA from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln with dual emphasis in ceramics and sculpture. Austin completed residencies at Clay Art Center in Port Chester, New York, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, and LUX Center for the Arts.
Elephant Seat, 2025 stoneware, underglaze, tile sealer
24” x 25” x 25”
$6,500
Laura Dirksen
Maria Stein, Ohio
Laura Dirksen’s work embodies her own cognitive dissonance and becomes a vehicle to understand her conflicted and evolving value system. This value system includes, but is not limited to, societal pressures within dairy culture, coding systems incorporating domestic and livestock materials, as well as trends, age, diagnosis, and religion. Laura’s visual language is a product of how she processes materials and navigates the world, forging sculptures as a celebration of techniques blended with her personal traditions and heritage.
Laura Dirksen is from Maria Stein, Ohio. She received her BFA from Bowling Green State University specializing in ceramics and painting in 2019. Afterwards she completed a two-year Post Baccalaureate Program at Kent State University. Laura recently received her MFA from Penn State University in Spring 2023, before joining us at the Archie Bray Foundation.
Dante Gambardella Bozeman, Montana
Dante Gambardella finds great value in learning from the traditions of different cultures, an interest that has led him to study ceramics in Brazil, Italy, and Japan. He is deeply interested in how his creative practice is influenced by surroundings and how humankind is impacting the environment. Deliberately limiting the use of mined materials, he highlights the importance of having a sustainable art practice. To him the world of clay is about engaging with his community, contributing to a network of shared knowledge, and challenging himself as an artist.
Gambardella grew up in the Bay Area and found ceramics when he moved to Bozeman, MT. While studying at Montana State University he became very interested in wood firing and using local materials — techniques ceramicists have been using for thousands of years.
Staircase stoneware, glaze
25” x 35” x 30”
$6,500
Tower at Night
stoneware, glaze
32” x 10” x 1”
$960
Crystal Fall
stoneware, glaze
32” x 10” x 1”
$960
Morning Light stoneware, glaze
20” x 30” x 1”
$1,800
Lexus Giles
Jackson, Mississippi
Lexus Giles’ work explores themes of systems, erasures, and obstacles that the low-income black community experience on a daily basis. She creates sculptures and installations that incorporate ceramic, sound, video, and everyday objects filled with personal, historical, and cultural meaning to explore identity, memories, and place. She uses clay to draw in the connection the black community has with Black Church referring to all life beginning in dirt and using the material to create solutions for contemporary issues. Coilbuilding and relief carving give her the sense of adding, building, and removing certain history she was taught or never taught. The result of each piece is to place the audience in the perspective of the black community.
Giles received her BFA from Mississippi State University in 2019. This spring she earned her MFA in ceramics from the University of Florida. Giles’ work has been exhibited in Mississippi, Florida, Iowa, Chicago, and New York. She received the 2021-2022 University of Florida Grinter Fellowship and the Sam B. Hamilton Noxubee Refuge Fellowship in 2019.
Country Sh*t Face Jug, 2025
ceramic, underglaze, gold luster
9” x 9” x 13”
$2,000
Everyone Loves the Sunshine Face Jug, 2025
ceramic, underglaze, gold luster
9” x 9” x 13”
$2,000
Rebecca Harvey Executive Director
Helena, Montana
An accomplished artist, Rebecca also brings deep experience working with complex educational institutions such as The Bray. Her academic career includes more than 25 years at The Ohio State University in numerous roles, including chair of the Department of Art, professor and chair of the senate steering committee. She also served at the Royal College of Art in London as head of programme, applied arts, and most recently was director and professor at Ball State University’s School of Art.
Rebecca Harvey was born in Columbus, Ohio. She received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and her BFA from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Past positions include Professor and Chair, Department of Art at Ohio State University and Professor and Head of Programme; Ceramics, Glass Metal and Jewellery at the Royal College of Art in London, UK. She is currently the Executive Director of The Bray. Her work is based in the residue, both physical and intangible, of objects. Project-based sculptural work reflects the implications of place on process and materials, on weight and heft, and the expectations of material. Ceramic work often focuses on both shape and the shape contained, on surfaces that scratch at the air and push against assumptions of domesticity.
Pickle Joe, 2025
ceramic, glaze, layered and multi-fired, assembled
11” x 8.5” x 6”
$750
Shrug, 2025
ceramic, glaze, layered and multi-fired, assembled
12” x 9” x 5.75”
$950
Simphiwe Mbunyuza
Johannesburg, South Africa
Simphiwe Mbunyuza (b. 1989; Eastern Cape, South Africa) creates masterful objects and vessels combining stoneware, leather, fabric and steel. Simphiwe’s richly textured, confounding ceramic object are featured traditional African iconography and cultural symbols. Furthermore, to produce his work Simphiwe uses a coiling technique that has been employed by the Xhosa people for centuries. Elegant and graphic, Simphiwe’s forms and colors unify in his extraordinarily distinct ceramic objects.
Simphiwe Mbunyuza obtained an MFA from Oklahoma University and a B.Tech from Walter Sisulu University in South Africa. He has shown his work globally, including exhibitions at Guggenheim Gallery, Gallery 1957, Anderson Ranch and Marriane Boesky Gallery, among others. Honors include the Red Clay Faction Award and the Oscar Johnson Award. Simphiwe was a resident at A.I.R. Vallauris France and joined The Bray as the 2022 Lilian Fellow.
Janina Myronova
Wroclaw, Poland; Ukraine
Janina Myronova creates narrative through figurative forms and composed backdrops. Utilizing a specific and distorted representation of the body, each composition shows a different personality and personal story to collectively reference a graphic novel and arcing story. Imparting her own emotion through linework, Myronova’s works are strategically charged with color to saturate and amplify their individual stories.
Janina Myronova received her MFA from the Department of Ceramic Art at Lviv National Academy of Fine Arts (Lviv, Ukraine) in 2012, an MFA from the Department of Ceramics and Glass at The Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts and Design (Wroclaw, Poland) in 2013, and her PhD from the Department of Ceramics and Glass at Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts in 2019. Continually developing her work and practice, Myronova has attended numerous residencies including opportunities at the New Taipei Yingge Ceramics Museum (New Taipei, Taiwan), Clayarch Gimhae Musem (Gimhae-si, Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea), Lefebvre and Fils (Paris, France), the Polish Sculpture Centre (Oronsko, Poland), and the International Ceramic Research Center (Guldagergaard, Denmark), International Ceramic Studio (Kecskemet, Hungary), Northern Clay Center.
Unstoppable, 2025 stoneware, underglaze, decal
15” x 8.2” x 4.2”
$3,700
Whispers in the Grass, 2025 stoneware, underglaze
16.6” x 5.5” x 7.5”
$4,000
Carey Nathanson
Wilmington, North Carolina
Carey Nathanson’s work is primarily hand-built and wood fired cups, platters, bottles and other vessels. Using pine and a mixture of hardwoods, the goal is to fire several days to saturate the work with fly ash, encourage local reduction effects by building large ember beds and create dramatic surfaces with big color palettes. With each wood firing, the surfaces of the pieces record a snapshot in time of unique conditions and are affected by the place, materials and individual collaborators within that universe.
Carey Nathanson started working with clay during his high school years in his home town of Wilmington, North Carolina. In 2018 and 2019 he studied wood firing as a studio assistant under John Dix in Kobe, Japan and Nick Schwartz in Comptche, California. Since his time as an assistant, he has completed residencies at the American Museum of Ceramic Art, the Mendocino Art Center, STARworks, Red Lodge Clay Center, Cider Creek Collective and Sawtooth School for Visual Art.
Cookie Jar, 2025 wood fired stoneware, natural ash glaze
10” x 7” x 6”
Evil Basket, 2025
wood fired stoneware, natural ash glaze
19” x 12” x 8”
$500
Jason Lee Starin
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Through intuitive making with his hands, Jason Lee Starin’s work strives to extend the role of functionality beyond mere utility and towards a possibility that the making act is a haptic necessity which defines and sustains our human identity. Employing ceramics, discarded objects, and construction materials to create sculptures, his art practice attempts to find connections between craft, escapism, and emotional awareness. Artworks reference geological landforms, geometric structures, and the myths of creation and survival that intertwine our imagined and physical identities.
Starin holds an MFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art and Oregon College of Art and Craft, and a BFA in ceramics from Grand Valley State University. In 2017, Starin received an Independence Foundation Fellowship Grant to research his interest in Geomythology during a two-month stay at the NES Artist Residency in Skagaströnd, Iceland. Starin has worked at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, BDDW, Mudshark Studios, Michael Curry Design, The Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, and Ferris State University.
VISITOR (6 total)
stoneware, cone 5, oxidation
$4,850 each
Kim Tucker
Los Angeles, California
Kim Tucker is a current long-term resident and Joan Lincoln fellow at The Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana. Originally from Los Angeles, CA, she has been working in clay for over 30 years. Her figures and forms are handbuilt, influenced by figurines, cave paintings and Beatrice Wood.
Kim received a B.F.A. in Ceramic Sculpture under the direction of Viola Frey at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, CA. Kim then went on to receive her M.F.A. in ceramics under the guidance of M.J. Bole at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. Kim was a recent invited artist-in-residence at Cal State University Dominguez Hills, visiting artist at The Archie Bray Foundation and artist-inresidence at the American Museum of Ceramic Arts. Kim has shown her work at Gallery Futur (Switzerland), Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, American Museum of Ceramic Arts, Lauren Powell Projects, L2Kontemporary, and AMcE Creative Arts to name a few.
Tall Candle, 2025
mid-range ceramic, overglaze
2” x 5” x 3.5”
$180
Snail Friend, 2025
mid-range ceramic
17” x 11” x 10”
$2,200
Worm Friend, 2025
mid-range ceramic
17” x 11” x 10”
$2,200
Spider Friend, 2025
mid-range ceramic, overglaze
19” x 11” x 10”
$2,200
Small Striped Candle, 2024
mid-range ceramic
4.5” x 5” x 3”
$80
Small Green Candle, 2024
mid-range ceramic
5.5” x 6” x 3”
$80
$1,800
Eliza Weber
Great Falls, Montana
Eliza Weber’s work explores interconnectedness and materiality in a variety of mediums including ceramic, paper, found objects, and textiles. Through considerations of duality and context, with explorations in emotion and play, individual pieces and installations become abstracted reflections of the world around us. Influenced by the curation of domestic places and the management of environments, interior and exterior overlap, acknowledging the ways in which objects, the self, and others occupy space.
Eliza Weber completed her MFA at Arizona State University and BFA at The University of Montana. She has completed short residencies at Medalta in Alberta, Canada and The Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen, China. Eliza was also an Artist in Residence at Pottery Northwest in Seattle, Washington. Returning home, she was Director of Education at the Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art in Great Falls, Montana. She served on the boards of NCECA and the Ceramics Research Center, presently serving on the NCECA Green Task Force. Eliza is currently a Long-Term Resident at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana.
Rose Wallpaper, 2025 found wallpaper, porcelain
48” x 36” x 0.5”
$3,800
Blue Polka Dot Bouquet, 2020/2025 ceramic with glaze and china paint, notepad backing, envelope liner, map, scrap paper
Sculpture: 24” x 9” x 7.5”
Collage: 15” x 9” x 1”
$2,400